Thailand Targets Tourists from USA / Canada;
Signs MOU with EVA Air

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and
Taiwan-based EVA Airways have signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at working on
joint tourism promotion strategies that will boost the number of
visitors from the USA and Canada.

Mr. Yuthasak Supasorn,
TAT Governor said, “This MOU will help us to target tourists from
the Americas – one of our most important and fastest growing
markets. EVA Air is a vital link between North America and Asia as
there are currently no direct flights from the USA and Canada to
Thailand. By working with EVA Air on tourism initiatives, we can
help get word out about Thailand’s attractions and boost visitor
numbers even more in 2017 and beyond.”

EVA Air
currently operates 80 flights per week between North America and
Taiwan, including 3 daily flights from Los Angeles, 2 daily
flights from San Francisco, 10 flights a week from Seattle and
five flights a week from Vancouver on the West Coast as well as 2
daily flights from New York and five flights per week from Toronto
on the East Coast. The airline also offers daily service from Houston and four flights per week from Chicago in the USA.

Passengers can then connect with flights to Bangkok on any of
EVA’s 26 flights per week on the Taipei-Bangkok route, which was
recently increased from 17 flights a week to meet the demands of
long haul passengers.

Of the total passengers travelling on EVA
Air’s Taipei-Bangkok routes, about 50% are from North
America and Europe.

Mr. Golden Kou, Spokesman of EVA Air,
said “We are delighted that this MOU has marked another
significant cooperation between TAT and EVA Airways to promote
Thailand as a short haul destination for Taiwanese tourists and
long haul destination for travellers from North America.”

In 2015, Thailand attracted 827,110 tourists from the US
market, a rise of 12.61% over the previous year. Of the
total, 50.44% came from the West Coast and 49.56 flew from
the East Coast. Tourists from this part of the world spent
US$146.63 per day and stayed around 13.38 days in Thailand.

From January to November 2016, a total of 1,236,694 tourists
visited Thailand from the Americas, an increase of
13.36% over 2015. Of these increased numbers of
travellers, 859,838 travellers came from the USA, (an increase of
12.32%), and 216,768 came from Canada, (an increase of
7.31%).

TAT also has plans to open a new office in Canada which
will
offer services to Canadian tourists heading to the Kingdom.